User content - the competence of the masses

Makeupalley has now 1,042,028 reviews. Amazon.com has for sure millions. The Swedish Discshop has tens of thousands of DVD reviews. When you contribute as a user to these sites they can grant you the Ownership of your content. The sites normally grant themselves the Right to use, in some cases any way they like. The can even make sure of the possibility to alter your user input at will. Normally they promise integrity security. They will then only show your alias connected to your input. In the commercial world of internet the above regulations seems not to bother the contributor, the consumer. Why can we draw that conclusion? Because of the masses of input and as we have seen almost no fuss at all about it (tags and “comments”/reviews that is). As long as we do not count it as a work on an artistic integrity level it seems to be ok.

We do now have discussions in some countries about library authorities wanting to take hold on some user generated content in e g state authority controlled servers for only restricted use. This regards user content which has been generated by commenting on library bought material when visiting library pages. It signals that users who contribute to library pages are of different stock than those contributing on e g Amazon. But the books, the media are the same. How can we manage giving all users, the society the best possible output of this material?

If the content on these sites are restricted they will become content silos and can not be used in conjunction with other services thus restricting the possibility of being a full true part of the information society, and for that matter the idea of web 2.0. Is that in the contributors interest? Does he or she want to repeat their review on different sites?

How would it be if whoever wants to publish a site about books or other media and have user generated content contributed to their service opens up their data for others to use? That would surely be in line of the 2.0 concept. If this scenario is possible then the end-user, the society will benefit the most. Not a specific institution or any commercial company. If this scenario is possible, strong actors on this arena will furthermore have the possibility to on top of this content build intelligent systems with the possibility to enhance the quality of the sites and contribute even more to the end user experience. Actors will even compete in reusing this data in the best possible way to lift their web services. The effect of that? All win. Commercial or non-commercial activity. But most of all, the user.
A benefit is that you as a user do not have to wander around the net to find the reviews.
If we do not have an open approach to this, sites like DVD-Basen.dk, Rottentomatoes.com would not be possible and tens of thousands of movie buffs will have a poorer world to live in. Especially a Jean-Pierre Melville Jacques Tourneur Wong Kar Wai Todd Haynes Guillermo del Toro fan like myself

Maybe some guidelines will help, suggestions:

(The CC licenses Attribution Share Alike or Attribution No Derivatives could eventually be used?)

1. The contributor has Ownership.
2. The service provider has a nonexclusive Right to use.
3. The service provider can not charge for the content.
4. The service provider can not change the input but can choose not to publish the material based on national laws, relevancy etc (including an abuse function).
5. The personal integrity is secured.
6. The service provider accepts an (nationally?) agreed api standard for web service use of the material.

			Written by : Boris Ukotic Zetterlund Categories : user content user rights Comments : Read comments (2)  Write a comment